Person-Centered
Therapy
Person-Centered Therapy
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A reaction against the directive and psychoanalytic
approaches
Challenges:
The assumption that “the counselor knows best”
The validity of advice, suggestion, persuasion,
teaching, diagnosis, and interpretation
The belief that clients cannot understand and
resolve their own problems without direct help
The focus on problems over persons
Person-Centered Therapy
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Emphasizes:
 Therapy as a journey shared by two fallible
people
 The person’s innate striving for self-actualization
 The personal characteristics of the therapist and
the quality of the therapeutic relationship
 The counselor’s creation of a permissive, “growth
promoting” climate
 People are capable of self-directed growth if
involved in a therapeutic relationship
A Growth-Promoting Climate
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Congruence - genuineness or realness
Unconditional positive regard- acceptance
and caring, but not approval of all behavior
Accurate empathic understanding – an
ability to deeply grasp the client’s
subjective world
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Helper attitudes are more important than
knowledge
Six Conditions(necessary and sufficient for
personality changes to occur)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Two persons are in psychological contact
The first, the client, is experiencing incongruency
The second person, the therapist, is congruent or
integrated in the relationship
The therapist experiences unconditional positive regard
or real caring for the client
The therapist experiences empathy for the client’s
internal frame of reference and endeavors to
communicate this to the client
The communication to the client is, to a minimal degree,
achieved
The Therapist
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Focuses on the quality of the therapeutic
relationship
Serves as a model of a human being struggling
toward greater realness
Is genuine, integrated, and authentic, without a
false front
Can openly express feelings and attitudes that are
present in the relationship with the client
Existential Therapy
Philosophical/Intellectual Approach to Therapy
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BASIC DIMENSIONS ~ OF THE HUMAN
CONDITION
 The capacity for self-awareness
 The tension between freedom & responsibility
 The creation of an identity & establishing
meaningful relationships
 The search for meaning
 Accepting anxiety as a condition of living
 The awareness of death and nonbeing
The Capacity for Self-Awareness
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The greater our awareness, the greater our
possibilities for freedom
Awareness is realizing that:
 We are finite - time is limited
 We have the potential, the choice, to act or not to
act
 Meaning is not automatic - we must seek it
 We are subject to loneliness, meaninglessness,
emptiness, guilt, and isolation
Identity and Relationship
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Identity is “the courage to be” ~ We must trust
ourselves to search within and find our own
answers
 Our great fear is that we will discover that there
is no core, no self
Relatedness ~ At their best our relationships are
based on our desire for fulfillment, not our
deprivation
 Relationships that spring from our sense of
deprivation are clinging, parasitic, and symbiotic
The Search for Meaning
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Meaning ~ like pleasure, meaning must be
pursued obliquely
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Finding meaning in life is a by-product of a
commitment to creating, loving, and working
“The will to meaning” is our primary striving
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Life is not meaningful in itself; the individual must
create and discover meaning
Anxiety – A Condition of Living
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Existential anxiety is normal - life cannot be lived,
nor can death be faced, without anxiety
 Anxiety can be a stimulus for growth as we
become aware of and accept our freedom
 We can blunt our anxiety by creating the illusion
that there is security in life
 If we have the courage to face ourselves and life
we may be frightened, but we will be able to
change
Relationship Between Therapist
and Client
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Therapy is a journey taken by therapist and client
 The person-to-person relationship is key
 The relationship demands that therapists be in
contact with their own phenomenological world
The core of the therapeutic relationship
 Respect, & faith in the clients’ potential to cope
 Sharing reactions with genuine concern &
empathy